


How Could They Try You

by bertie456 (bertee)



Series: Bones: You're Lovely to Me [23]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertie456





	How Could They Try You

Of all the things Angela Montenegro expected to do before Temperance Brennan, getting arrested was somewhere between maxing out a boyfriend's credit card solely on perfume and expensive chocolate, and participating in a drunken (second) marriage ceremony in Vegas.

Therefore, as she sat in her car, idling on the curb outside the Hoover building and mentally giving the passing agents marks out of ten, she had no idea as to the real reason why Brennan had called for a ride. The anthropologist had told her that she'd left her car at the house of the senator's aide, who had just been busted for murder, and that she needed a lift to retrieve it, but had left the rest up to Angela's imagination.

Angela had a very vivid imagination.

Happily picturing her best friend being carried over the threshold of the Hoover building by a certain FBI agent whose smile could melt the panties right off any woman in the vicinity, she was jolted out of her thoughts when said best friend rapped sharply on the window of her car, with her panties still in solid form and an expression which informed her that she was clearly unhappy about something.

Inwardly wondering whether the agent hadn't lived up to her somewhat stellar expectations, the artist gave her an apologetic grin as she dropped into the passenger seat. "Sorry, sweetie; I didn't see you come out..."

Brennan waved her apology away, lips tight and eyes forward. "Can we just go, Ange?"

Slightly concerned, and wondering just how bad Booth really was at desk-sex, Angela put the car into drive and set off for Thompson's house, shooting anxious glances at her friend as they went. After less than a block, the silence became too much for her, and she ventured gently, "What happened, Bren?" The anthropologist looked over at her, and she elaborated, "When you left you were like a kickass version of Velma, and now you look like someone just stole your Scooby van. What happened? You arrested the guy, didn't you?"

Not understanding the pop culture references, but knowing exactly what story her friend wanted from her, Brennan just nodded, her jaw still tight as she replied, "Yes. He did it; he killed Cleo Eller and he was about to destroy evidence when I got there."

Angela grinned with satisfaction, "So, smoking gun then?"

Brennan's head snapped round to face her and she protested vehemently, "He was going to light the place on fire! It was completely rational!"

The artist wrinkled her brow, confused as to how Brennan had jumped from a common saying to an impassioned defense. "What? Bren, I-" Realisation dawned and the car swerved violently as Angela looked over at her friend in shock. "You shot him?"

"He was going to destroy evidence!" Brennan replied, at a roughly equal volume but slightly lower pitch. "He killed Cleo Eller; he would've set me on fire!"

"So you shot him?" she repeated, still stunned. "You pulled your gun, and shot a guy?"

"A murderer..." Brennan defended, losing conviction, and Angela shook her head with a smirk.

"Well, that explains what you were doing at the Hoover building. Did Booth and his bosses give you hell for it?"

The anthropologist looked firmly out of the window as she answered evasively, "In a way."

The patented 'Sexual Innuendos Ahoy!' grin spread across the artist's face as she asked with a conspiratorial eyebrow wiggle, "Oh really? Was there spanking involved? Did our Extra Special Agent break out those handcuffs?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Ange," she responded tersely, fingers clenched into frustrated fists as she stared stubbornly at the passing streets.

However, like a dog with a very different type of bone, Angela wasn't about to let this one go, especially since Brennan's 'no comment' was practically an admission of gossip. Leaning back in her seat, she pondered, mostly to herself, "So, I was right about one thing, but was it the spanking or the handcuffs?" She pressed on with the wild speculation, hoping that Brennan would tell the truth just to get her to shut up, "Hmm, well, if I had to guess, Booth seems like more of a handcuff guy to me. Spanking just seems so impersonal..."

Partly uncomfortable, partly annoyed and partly wondering in what situation spanking would be considered impersonal, Temperance finally put her out of her misery. "Fine." Her tone was laced with anger as she informed her, "Booth arrested me for shooting Thompson." Angela's mouth dropped open. "He let me go, but only after he took me back to the Hoover building in handcuffs and had me interrogated."

"He did what?" Angela asked, her pitch now barely in the range of human hearing. The sleek blue sports car had a near miss with a mailbox as she looked over at her friend, stunned by this revelation. "He arrested you?"

Now more concerned with her life than the arrest, Brennan gripped the door handle, reminding nervously, "Angela, the road..."

"They make the sidewalk wide for a reason," she shrugged, apparently figuring that the hapless pedestrians had enough room to duck and cover. "But he arrested you? Seriously? Handcuffs and interrogation and the whole "you have the right to remain silent" shebang?"

"I just said that."

"Right." The artist regained some of her composure. "Sorry." She also regained her curiosity. "So what did he say? Did he come up with some crappy excuse about protecting and serving, and that it was all for your own good?"

Brennan shook her head, an unhappy expression on her face. "He came up to me outside the house and said he was sorry, but before I could say anything, he put me in cuffs and read me my rights."

"What about the ride to the Hoover building? Did you not ask him what the hell he was doing?"

"I didn't speak to him," she admitted, almost proudly. "Anything I said could've been used in court, so I didn't want to give him any ammunition. Some other agent interrogated me, and then they let me go, saying that they weren't going to take it any further. I've not seen Booth since before the interrogation, and I don't want to."

"Sweetie..." Angela said in a half pitying, half patronising tone.

"Don't start," Brennan interrupted firmly. "I am not talking to him. His actions were completely unnecessary, bureaucratic, humiliating..." She sighed but kept her fists clenched as she reiterated, "I am not speaking to him. If the FBI need my assistance with anything else, they can assign a new agent."

"But you two were doing so well," the artist countered hopefully, before reconsidering, "Okay, not 'well' in the traditional sense, but you hadn't broken any of his bones yet, which, for you, is definitely progress. Just talk to him, before you do something you'll regret."

"Which part of 'he arrested me' do you not understand, Ange?" Temperance asked, frustrated. "I can't work with him. If I have to deal with a new selection of incompetent agents then that's fine, but I do not want to see that arrogant, egotistic, unreasonable-"

"Incredibly hot," Angela chipped in, deciding to throw what she considered to be a mitigating adjective into the list.

Brennan smirked, before saying with half-hearted annoyance, "I thought the role of the best friend was to demonise men like him."

"Hey, I can demonise with the best of them," the artist protested with a grin. "Remember Hank?"

Despite her irritation, she couldn't stop a smile from playing on her lips as she remembered the pictures of her former boyfriend, complete with a certain digitally reduced body part, that Angela had gleefully delivered to every mail tray at the Jeffersonian as payback for his cheating ways.

Seeing the smile, Angela continued, her tone softening, "But what happened with Booth isn't like that. While Hank was a lying bastard who couldn't keep it in his pants, Booth was probably just doing what he had to." She gave her an encouraging smile. "You need to give him another chance, Bren. From what I saw during this case, you might actually be able to make this one work out."

Temperance's smile vanished. "I don't want a relationship with Booth, Angela. You may want to sleep with him, but I don't."

The artist made a 'Psht' noise before saying playfully, "Oh please. No woman in the world would kick him out of bed." Remembering the point of the conversation before it diverged to bed and Booth, she became serious again. "I wasn't talking about you getting into a relationship with him anyway, although if you did, you two would have the world's cutest kids-"

"Angela."

"Right, sorry. What I meant was that this partnership could actually turn out okay." She glanced over at her as they stopped at some lights. "You two work well together, sweetie. He's like the Mulder to your Scully."

"Booth said that earlier." She wrinkled her brow. "I still don't know what it means."

Making a mental note of what DVDs to buy her friend for Christmas, the artist tried again, "You know, the up to your down, the left to your right, the S to your M-" Temperance shot her a glare and she bit her lip to hide a smile. "Too early for handcuff jokes?" Taking the silence as a resounding 'yes', she continued, "He's yin, you're yang. Opposites attract, honey, or in this case, opposites make one awesome crime-fighting team."

They turned the corner as they neared Thompson's house, but Brennan shook her head again. "He arrested me. I'm a forensic anthropologist, a published author, his _partner_ , and he just arrested me like some criminal." The bitterness returned to her voice as she continued, "He didn't even bother to question me himself; he got another agent to do it because he was off taking all the credit for catching the killer. He probably doesn't even care whether I was released or not."

"Oh, he cares," Angela said, a smile in her voice as she pulled up to the curb. "He definitely cares."

Puzzled by her confidence, Temperance glanced at her friend, only to see that she was looking across the suburban street with a smile on her face. Following her gaze, the anthropologist was surprised to see Booth's SUV parked next to her car, with the agent himself leaning against the dark vehicle, fingers playing nervously with a poker chip as he waited for her to emerge.

Panicked by situations she couldn't control, Brennan looked helplessly at her friend. "I don't want to talk to him, Ange."

"Then just listen to him," Angela replied with an understanding smile. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Taking that as her cue to leave, she exited the car, standing uncomfortably on the sidewalk as Angela drove off with a final wave and a swerve. Willing herself not to walk straight over and slap him, Brennan headed towards her car, doing her best to ignore the fact that Booth had moved to stand in her way.

He proved harder to ignore when he took hold of her arm gently, stopping her from bypassing him, and said quietly, "Bones, wait."

She tugged her arm out of his grip, but faced him nonetheless. "I told you not to call me, Bones." Not wanting to hear his cocky comeback, she inquired tiredly, "What are you doing here, Booth?"

"Apologising," he said simply. She stared at him for a second, before moving off towards her car without saying a word. "Hey, hey, wait, okay?" Booth protested, running round the back of the vehicle to intercept her before she could get in the door. "Just hear me out, alright?"

"Hear you out?" she repeated, incredulously. "What's there to say, Booth? You ignored the fact that I was supposed to be your partner, arrested me for preventing myself being set on fire, took me in like a criminal, and then had another agent interrogate me because you were too busy bragging to your boss about how you solved the case without any help from a 'squint'." She paused for breath, before saying bitterly, "I don't need to hear you out, Booth. I was there, remember?"

Cringing at her recap of events, he began to argue back, "Bones, it wasn't like that and you know it. I had to arrest you; you shot a guy!"

"He was a murderer!"

"Which is why they let you go." He looked at her apologetically. "It had to be done by the book if we wanted to ensure Thompson didn't have any loopholes to exploit at trial, and that meant that I had to read you your rights, cuff you and have an unconnected agent conduct the interrogation. If it helps, I didn't want to do any of it, especially since you were only defending yourself."

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "You want me to feel sorry for _you_? The FBI doesn't respect me or my work at the best of times, but to be led through the building in handcuffs and then interrogated... Booth, it was humiliating! How are they ever going to respect the work that-"

She was cut off as Booth started to laugh, and her hands went to her hips, suddenly thinking that Angela's happiness over the lack of broken bones was a little premature. Seeing her offended expression, he tried to stifle a smile as he explained, "Bones, the guys at the FBI didn't think any less of _you_ for what happened tonight."

"Then what-"

"It's going to take me years to live down the fact that my squint went off on her own to catch a murderer, and not only preserved vital evidence but shot the bastard in the process. You did what most agents dream of doing, and the fact that I showed up afterwards to clear up the mess is not doing my reputation much good."

He shot her a genuine grin, and she felt the corners of her own mouth tugging upward slightly, relieved and amused by the reactions of his co-workers. Registering this smile, Booth met her eyes, saying sincerely, "I'm sorry, Bones. Really."

Although her panties still managed to stay intact, Temperance felt the majority of her anger melting away under his soft smile, and she reluctantly conceded, "You're forgiven. You were only doing what you had to..."

The grin widened as he said teasingly, "And the fact that I came off worse than you out of this has nothing to do with it at all."

She shrugged, happy to let the smug smile play on her lips as he moved away from her car door to let her in. Booth rolled his eyes at this, and couldn't resist pointing out, "Well, I have may have lost a bit of respect, but at least I still get my gun."

Temperance's face dropped into a scowl. "I want my gun back."

"Sure," he replied with a friendly smile. "I'll even help you with the permit application."

Her mouth fell open and he backed off toward the safety of his tank-like SUV. "Permit application? Booth, give me the gun!"

"Do you really think you should be shouting that in a neighborhood where you just gunned down a resident?" he asked with feigned concern as he opened his car door, and she stared daggers at him.

"I did not 'gun down a resident' - that has extremely negative connotations. I shot a murderer, in the leg, in self defense." Always unable to resist an argument, she added pointedly, "Which I wouldn't have needed to do if a certain FBI agent hadn't left the shooting up to me."

To her annoyance the cocky grin didn't budge. "You're right, Bones. In future, I should do _all_ the shooting."

Catching her out, Booth climbed smoothly into the truck as she tried to come up with a suitably scathing response, feeling mildly content that not only had his partner forgiven him, but he'd managed to get some payback for all the mocking he would undoubtedly endure at work the following day.

Seeing him reach for the door handle, and unable to produce a comeback that didn't make her sound whiny and/or like a gun-wielding maniac, Temperance called out the first thing that sprang to mind, "Don't call me Bones!"

Booth's door slammed shut before she could even finish her sentence, and she slid, pouting, into her own car as he drove off. Sighing in annoyance, she started the engine, pleased that they had managed to resolve the arrest issue, but making a mental note that the ridiculous 'Bones' nickname he'd bestowed upon her would definitely have to go.


End file.
